Mr. Monday and other tales of Jewish Amsterdam

156 Air. Monday and Other Tales of Jewish Amsterdam

work by General Eisenhower himself, who had called him "the greatest living expert on security."

"It's nice to be called that," he told me "but I'd rather be a healthy man again. I am stiff from arthritis. A couple of months ago some military quack gave me the shock of my life. He told me that I had cancer and that I had only three more months to live. So I flew to London to have X-rays taken. What terrible fear I had that in three months' time I was going to die. I had sent so many people to the gallows and now I was afraid to die myself, ha, ha, ha. But it turned out not to be cancer.. .ha, ha, ha, only arthritis, neglected arthritis. What a joke. I'm convinced that so-called doctor who told me I had cancer was fooling me on purpose. He got what he wanted, he scared me to death. I suppose he told my colleagues and they all had a big laugh together. They must have seen how frightened I was." Oreste laughed hoarsely. "I could kill them, all of them," he said. "I didn't want to see any of them anymore after that ordeal, so I resigned from the service. I'm going back to my flat in London and I'll spend the rest of my days there with my souvenirs, the cigarette cases, guns, diaries, mirrors, and pocket combs, all the things which remind me of the people I sent back to their mothers.

And at night I'll play phonograph records. You know my favourite?"

Did I know his favourite? Of course I did! Oreste was so fond of that record that he brought it with him every time he visited our house for a weekend, all through those war days in England. It seemed that he could not live without that music. It was the record on which Sophie Tucker sings of her Jewish mother, "My Yiddische Mama".